Tag Archives: Mingyu Lin

Pit – The Vaults

Reviewed – 3rd March 2020

★★★★

“This humour with subtextual glints of trauma was brilliantly realised and effortlessly portrayed”

As the title indicates, Lòng Mẹ translates from Vietnamese to English to mean ‘Mother’s Soul’. VanThanh Productions presented its titled theme gracefully with two very different stories, cathartically linked to recognise the power of ancestry and give insight into Vietnamese heritage.

As the audience were sitting down, Tuyen Do and Michael Phong Le sat on the minamilistic set and called on the audience, welcoming them in and asking them to sit down, all the while speaking in thick Vietnamese accents. Comments such as ‘You sir, you so handsome, come sit at the front’ induced humour from the stereotype and set a light hearted tone in the theatre. This quality was emulated throughout the production, acting as a powerful juxtaposition to the heart-breaking stories which unfolded.

Tuyen Do’s story was told through a masterclass in voice acting. Do seamlessly glided from a thick Vietnamese accent to a London accent as she portrayed both herself and her mother simultaneously in conversation. This allowed for a strong, punchy insight to her struggle to relate to her mother due to growing up with two opposing cultures at the same time. As she told the story of this relationship, beautiful and traumatising anecdotes including the hiding of gold bars in dead chickens, so that they might be able to trade on the black market during the Vietnam war, were both awe inspiring and funny. But the mood was quickly turned when we are told of her family’s citizenship being stripped due to fighting on the American side during the Vietnam war. This humour with subtextual glints of trauma was brilliantly realised and effortlessly portrayed.

Phong Le’s story was similar to Do’s in that it focused on the struggle of relating to a different generation, brought up during a very different time. However, Do’s story fixated more prominently on the ‘constant internal conflict’ of his coming to terms with his Vietnamese heritage, when he was brought up in the contrasting culture of the UK countryside. Phong Le’s performance was honest and delivered with a gentleness which worked beautifully. His ability to portray himself as a small child, through to being an adolescent and then an adult worked brilliantly as he told a story about his mother going to prison and his own questioning surrounding the incident with a raw innocence.

Mingyu Lin’s direction allowed the pair to transition between stories with simple dance sequences, this seemed a little unnecessary as an attempt to create a link between the two and a distraction from the honest conversations each performer gave. However, Lin’s direction shone through Phong Le’s performance; as he clutched a Rubik’s cube throughout the show, highlighting his naivety to his surroundings; it was clear that Lin’s attention to detail was meticulous here and that a great deal of thought had gone into it.

The production as a whole was awe inspiring, only let down by the unnecessary measures taken to link performances which would have stood strong and linked easily without them.

Soho Theatre

Reviewed – 22nd May 2019

★★★★

“provocative, creative, and a joy to watch”

It’s not easy to tell an important story, especially when everyone else wants to tell it for you.

Nyla Levy was tired of playing the “Jihadi Bride” in projects that neither knew nor cared about the experiences of such women. In Does My Bomb Look Big in This? she not only reclaims that narrative, but revamps it entirely. About five minutes into Aisha’s explanation of why her best friend Yasmin ended up in Syria, Yasmin herself storms onstage and demands to be involved. ‘This is my story,’ she complains, ‘and you’re telling it boringly.’ The cast take note, and the ninety minutes that follows is an effortlessly funny, affecting, and self-aware piece of theatre.

The friendship between the two girls is the core of this story. Halema Hussain (Aisha) and Nyla Levy (Yasmin) share a strong chemistry that makes their innate understanding of each other feel completely natural. It is this bond that facilitates the eloquent discussions of religious, racial, and political identity that permeate the play. Levy does not demonise or judge the girls for their actions; both performers invite empathy and understanding. The fact that they perform in front of their school lockers is a reminder of how out of their depth they truly are.

But the best moments are those in which both the script and the actors are aware of the fact that this is a performance. The highlight was when Actor Three (enlisted to play all the white characters – brilliantly portrayed by Eleanor Williams) breaks out of character to express her disappointment that ‘every character I play is so one dimensional’. What starts as a parody of white privilege ends with Actor Three being ordered, by Yasmin, to wear a hijab and play the role of Yasmin’s mum. This provocative decision not only forces Actor Three to confront her ignorant sense of entitlement, but forces white audience members to do the same. Once again, Levy makes us aware of how little these stories belong to us and – for all our apparent wokeness – how minimal our understanding of British Asian experience is.

When staff at the Soho Theatre announced that the house was open for this show, the ‘edgy’ title seemed to shock some of those around me. The apparent surprise that such a show exists reinforces the importance of Does My Bomb Look Big in This? – which, for the record, I wouldn’t call ‘edgy’; that would imply a lack of substance. I would call it provocative, creative, and a joy to watch.